LANGUAGE LEARNING IS NEVER WASTED, by guest blogger Francie Gow

When I was 22, I spent a year teaching English conversation classes in the French town of Armentières, nestled on the Belgian border. I had specifically asked to be sent to that region so that I could be as close as possible to my Dutch relatives.

Although I had not moved to France with the specific intention of learning Dutch, the circumstances turned out to be ideal. I only had to spend 12 hours a week in the classroom, leaving me with lots of spare time to study and listen to my new Teach Yourself Dutch tape. The lycée where I taught happened to offer Dutch as a language option, so I introduced myself to the teacher (a native speaker) and obtained permission to sit in on her beginner, intermediate and advanced classes. My frequent visits to my relatives provided natural contexts in which to practice and plenty of motivation.

By the end of that year, I could communicate effectively, if not fluently, with my few Dutch relatives who could not speak English (the very oldest and the very youngest). The biggest rewards came from finally getting to know my Oma better and being able to go out and run errands with her without necessarily needing my Opa around to translate. Naturally, she was as thrilled as I was with this development.

Of course, once I was back in Canada, I stopped using my Dutch. A year later, Opa and Oma flew in for a visit, and I went to meet them at the airport. When Oma began to tell me about their trip, I was horrified to discover that I had no idea what she was saying. I simply couldn’t follow her anymore. She, too, looked crestfallen, and I wondered whether all my efforts had been futile.

I needn’t have worried. When I returned to the country a few years later, it took only two or three days of real immersion to “unlock” most of what I had absorbed of the language. It had simply gone dormant in the interim. What a relief!

I once stumbled on a blog post by Tim Ferriss called “Reactivating Forgotten Languages: How to Catch Up.” His premise is that it is not necessary to “keep up” with languages that you use only occasionally; you can always “catch up” by giving yourself a shot of exposure just before you need it. This certainly reflects my experience.

I now know that most of my Dutch will come back on
its own a few days into a trip to the Netherlands.
However, sometimes it’s nice—or even necessary,
depending on whom I see when—to hit the ground
running.  Partly inspired by Ferriss and partly by Susan,
I have picked up the habit of buying a new
Harry Potter book in Dutch translation every time I visit
(generally once every two to four years). I don’t read it
right away; instead I wait for the month before my next
trip is scheduled. I already know the story, so I don’t
struggle with the narrative, and the process of reading
“wakes up” all those useful verbs and prepositions,
allowing me to start stringing sentences together upon
arrival. I still improve over the first few days, but I
get to skip that feeling of paralysis. I have twice put
this technique into practice successfully, and Harry Potter en de Gevangene van Azkaban is now sitting patiently on my shelf, waiting for me to book my next ticket...

ACCENT ON DUTCH, by guest blogger Francie Gow

My Dutch accent has progressed in fits and starts rather than gradually. The musical training surely helped here too, as did the early exposure to the sounds from hearing my mother speak with Dutch-speaking friends and relatives. However, there were a few sounds particular to Dutch that I could recognize but had trouble imitating for a long time, as I was not forced to try very often.

The first difficult sound I remember conquering was the rolled “r”. When I was eight years old, I spent a week or two with my great-aunt and great-uncle on the family farm in Netterden. Their four sons had learned English in school, so I generally communicated in English through them. They had a lovely dog named Bonnie who could do entertaining tricks, like rolling over or jumping up to push the door closed. I was eager to give her these commands myself, but she simply ignored me when I encouraged her to “rollen” with my wimpy English “r”. I practised and practised making motor noises with my tongue. A few days later, I knew I had finally succeeded when she heard me say “rrrrrrollen” and promptly did a little flip. I could not possibly have found a more exacting—or motivating—teacher.

When I finally decided in my early twenties to learn to speak Dutch, I set about conquering the last of the challenging sounds with the help of taped language lessons and by asking for help from my relatives every time I went to visit. While my Dutch accent today is not nearly as good as my French accent, the head start that I had acquired in childhood helps me sound much more advanced than the relative beginner I really am.

Basically, I can pass for a native speaker, or at least a proficient one, for the first thirty seconds of any conversation. The disadvantage is that whenever I ask for something in a store, I get a long, detailed answer in rapid-fire Dutch. I quickly learned the phrase, “Langzamer, alstublieft!” (More slowly, please!), and I use it constantly.

The advantage is that native speakers are less likely to switch into English to “help” me, thus giving me more opportunities to practise and improve. On a recent trip to The Hague, my partner and I wanted to reserve a guided tour at the Peace Palace. I dialled the number in the guidebook and began the conversation with “Goeden dag. Spreekt u Engels?” (Good day. Do you speak English?) The man at the other end answered, in Dutch, “Yes, of course I do, but I don’t think I will; your Dutch is much too good!” Totally caught off guard, I stammered my way clumsily through the rest of the conversation. However, it did the job, and he congratulated me warmly before hanging up.

Don’t despair if your child’s early exposure to a language is inconsistent at best; it may still facilitate future efforts!